Epic
by Rose Tinted Contact Lenses
Summary: Alistair makes a rather horrifying discovery, and finds that romance epics do have a tendency to... lie, somewhat. Things only get worse from there. Alistair/Amell
1. Chapter 1

_Another Amell/Alistair oneshot, with a side of sneaky Leliana._

_Just so you're aware, the gushing awfulness is intentional; it **is** a romance epic, after all. Romance epics do have a tendency to... dramatize, somewhat._

_Pure silliness, not angsty (maybe if you squint?)._

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><p><strong>Epic<strong>

He raises an eyebrow, looking in puzzlement at the parchment, reading through Leliana's neat, slightly swirly handwriting.

_It was love at first sight for our great Wardens._

Right. _Love. That _was why she'd refused to speak to him at all until they had a raging argument. His name was officially "templar" - even though he never took his vows - until Lothering.

_How could it not be? The Hero, with her legendary beauty and grace..._

When he first saw her, she'd nearly been arrested by templars, been caught in the middle of Jowan's blood magic; her hair was round her head in a messy halo, her eyes downcast and her robes bloodstained. As for grace? He swears he saw her trip over the hem of her robes and curse under her breath a moment before they met.

... _and her soulmate, strong in mind and body, brave and handsome..._

Andraste's flaming sword, Lel isn't actually planning on _showing _this to anyone?

He feels his face heat at his description. Brave? He must have seemed _arrogant_, arguing with another mage in front of her, but _brave? _

The reason for "handsome" escapes him, too - unshaven, purely average-looking Warden who took minor pride in his hair, perhaps.

He stops, re-reading another word. _Soulmate?_ He isn't sure he believes in that sort of thing, just as he still doubts he believes in Leliana's Maker-sent vision.

_They found each other through a Blight, found light in darkness..._

Hmmm. He remembers what he called his fellow Warden - "a rare and wonderful thing among all this darkness" - and supposes that _that _part's true, at least, though this is starting to sound like one of Wynne's... er, intricately-plotted novels. He frowns. Wait, is Leliana stealing _his words?_

_'Twas unlikely, a pair against all odds, a prince and a mage..._

He can't imagine her being called just "a mage", either. Morgana. Or his favourite mage. Or Warden. Or "quiet, frightening mage with sword", as she herself suggested.

Hang on. He is _not _technically an acknowledged prince. Never was. Bastard, illegitimate - yet the woman's making it sound like he's the one true heir to the throne or something.

... _the one true heir to the throne..._

Oh, Blighted Void.

_... who, despite his denials of his destiny..._

He trails a hand down his face in frustration, glad it stops him reading the rest, and skips the next paragraph.

..._ who faced the darkspawn and the Archdemon as a king, beginning his fair and just reign..._

They haven't even had the _Landsmeet _yet, and _already_ he's ruling "fairly and justly"?

Unfortunately for him, he carries on reading, eyebrows climbing further up his head as he does so, wincing.

He's so absorbed that Leliana manages to sneak up on him. "Enjoying your saga, Alistair?"

He jumps, making a strange, very unmanly noise that sounds a lot like "_Ark!_" and swiftly folds the parchment so she can't see it. Then sighs - she's _written it, _of course she knows what's in it. He pockets it, glaring at her. "I am _confiscating _this. I can't _believe..."_

Leliana gives him a wide, dangerously sweet smile. "Oh, Alistair. _That _will not stop me - I have _plenty _of paper. Anyway_, someone_ will have to read your tale at your coronation."

"Coro - ? Oh, no. Not this again. We are not _talking _about this..." He stands, beginning to walk away, when the Orlesian calls to him, in a voice dripping honey, "I suppose I shall have to show Morgana the latest draft."

"Don't you _dare. _You'll... traumatize her. Or she'll be laughing at us both for... well, forever. I'm not sure which is worse."

The woman just laughs, a tinkling, dainty, evil little laugh, and begins walking over to Morgana, while he watches in horror.

•


	2. Chapter 2

_A combination of two requests: Alistair and Zevran reading terrible fic, and Morgana's reaction to the romance saga mentioned in the last chapter. _

_Let's say the nobles wrote fanfic about the Blight... and it was truly terrible (yes, worse than **Leliana's**)._

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><p><strong>Epic<strong>

**II**

**They Think It's All Over...**

_Post-Blight_

Two men sit on a log with a roll of parchment stretched between them, their demeanours rather different.

"Oh, dear _Maker..." _Alistair doesn't dare to extract his bright red face from his palm.

Zevran grins. "See, this passage is _very _interesting. Apparently, they are 'rippling'."

Alistair lets out a very small, very hopeless groan, and finally looks up, his eyes widening when they finally meet the parchment again. "But that's... I'm careful with my laundry... I mean, _lakewater? _On a fencing shirt?" He winces. "Do they not _know _how _heavy_ that is?"

Zevran's grin widens as he points to a particular section. "Oh, and here you have forgotten it altogether." He reads it, then very obviously looks the hapless templar over. "Hmmm." He looks back to the text, tilting his head. "No." Another flicker of his eyes to the man beside him, then to the parchment. "No." A raise of the eyebrows, and he hands it to Alistair. "_That_ they have correct, however. Observe how..."

The man is practically beetroot by now. "You've been _comparing? _That is so... so wrong." He rolls up the parchment and stands, quickly making his way over to Morgana, who is in a similar state, Leliana giggling by her side.

"Are you...?" he starts, stopping at the expression on her face - at seeing him, she tries very hard to hide a laugh. "What? _What?"_ He recognises the parchment and looks to Leliana, eyes narrowing. "You _didn't_..."

The Orlesian simply nods with a sweet, benevolent smile. "Oh, I did."

Morgana looks at him with a wide grin, then back to the parchment, clearing her throat. "'Brave and handsome'?"

He rubs the bridge of his nose, waiting for the laughing. "I know, I know..."

What he _isn't _expecting is for his mage to look aside and briskly say to the bard, "Right you are." She frowns, her voice trailing off. "Though I'm not sure about my 'legendary beauty'..."

He bends to pick up one of the parchments rolled up by her feet, opening it out of curiosity, and discovers that this story certainly isn't Leliana's. He lets out a startled laugh, backing away slightly from the women with a murmur of, "Well, at least it's not just me..."

Morgana looks up abruptly, her face reddening and her expression horrified. "No. You can't. I was going to burn it... It's all lies."

He retreats to his usual spot by the fire and reads onwards, really quite surprised at the writer's... inventiveness. He makes a mental note to punch Bann Ersonn next time he sees him.

All this talk of seductively swaying hips is _so _not true...

Well, maybe a little. It's not like... all right, maybe he _has _been looking. Hardly at all, really. It's not _his_fault the group leader chooses to walk in front of them.

Her eyes aren't anything _like _the sun, either. Maybe... oceans. He shakes his head - oh great, now _he's _doing it...

He jumps as Zevran leans over his shoulder. A smirk splits the assassin's face as his own ears redden once again. "Impressive. Truly... impressive. Your usual reading material, my friend?"

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><p>Leliana lets out a sigh as she scans down the next paragraph, shaking her head. "Honestly. One would think they'd never heard an Antivan accent before..."<p>

Morgana tilts her head, frowning. "'Languidly caressing the words'. That's certainly a... _new_ way of looking at it."

She picks up another parchment, and her eyes widen as she murmurs, "Andraste's flaming _sword. _I've certainly never used a lightning spell _that _way..."

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><p>Somewhere in a Fereldan castle, a noble begins to write, quill scratching furiously at the paper, grinning widely as she does so.<p>

It is, after all, simply _rude _to leave one's audience on a cliffhanger.

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><p><em>Finished torturing them now. I promise! Just a little light-hearted piece while I work on a late update for the bigger project these characters inhabit.<em>


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